Very nice Don, The M-31 and M-45 images compare very favourably to posters I used to sell at Hansen which were made with telescopes much larger than yours. Impressive! patrick On 17 Jan 2010, at 16:05, Don J. Colton wrote:
I just had a chance to try out my new QSI 583 CCD camera in St. George this last week. The camera is one of several new cameras from different manufacturers using the same Kodak 8.3 megapixel chip with 5.4 micron pixels, making it ideal for small scopes. I took the following test images starting with M31:
http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=289&g2_page=3
I stacked more images for M31 than the other objects improving the image quality. I was impressed with the resolution of the image considering I was using a 106 mm refractor with an f/3.64 reducer giving me a focal length of only 386 mm. See the high resolution image below:
http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2821&g2_imageViewsIndex=1
Star spikes were added to the images of the Pleiades and the Horsehead. Other than that minimal processing was done on the images.